geo

2006-03-04T17:11:49Z

Michael: added implementation /* Implementations */

<h1> geo </h1>

'''geo''' (working name, pronounced "gee-oh") is a simple format for marking up geographic latitude longitude information, suitable for embedding in (X)HTML, Atom, RSS, and arbitrary XML. '''geo''' is a 1:1 representation of the "geo" property in the vCard standard ([http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2426.txt RFC2426]) in XHTML, one of several open [[microformats|microformat]] standards.
__TOC__

== Draft Specification ==

=== Editor/Author ===
[http://tantek.com/ Tantek Çelik], [http://technorati.com Technorati, Inc.]

=== Copyright ===
{{MicroFormatCopyrightStatement2005}}

=== Patents ===
{{MicroFormatPatentStatement}}

=== Inspiration and Acknowledgments ===
Thanks to everyone who participated in the [[geo-bof-2005-06-30|Geo Microformat BOF at O'Reilly's Where 2.0 conference]], and in particular to [http://radar.oreilly.com/nat/ Nat Torkington] and Vee McMillen of [http://oreilly.com O'Reilly] for [http://conferences.oreillynet.com/cs/where2005/view/e_sess/7476 arranging and hosting the BOF]. Thanks to Chris Hibbbert for providing the [http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=dc4754bf-64d5-4f28-8715-45ad2505c86f real world geo-caching example].

== Introduction and Background ==
The vCard standard ([http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2426.txt RFC2426]), has been broadly and interoperably implemented (e.g. Apple's Address Book application). The [[hcard|hCard]] microformat has similarly received significant adoption, from numerous sites publishing the format, to hCard to vCard proxies, to clientside javascript parsers.

At the [http://conferences.oreillynet.com/where/ Where 2.0 conference] in June 2005, there was widespread recognition that the community needed a way to simply and easily publish visible, extractable, geographic location information on the Web, given how often bloggers, and numerous other sites publish such information. The [[geo-bof-2005-06-30|geo microformat BOF]] discussed this very topic, and concluded with a consensus decision to just try using ''geo'' from vCard/hCard.

This specification introduces the '''geo''' microformat, which is a 1:1 representation of the aforementioned ''geo'' property from the vCard standard, by simply reusing the ''geo'' property and sub-properties as-is from the [[hcard|hCard]] microformat.

Publishers can both embed '''geo''' addresses directly in their web pages and feeds, as well as markup existing addresses in the context of the rest of the information in their web pages and feeds.

If the publisher knows and is publishing the ''name'' of the location in addition to its geo lat/long, then the publisher MUST use [[hcard|hCard]] instead of just '''geo''' to publish the name and geo lat/long of the location.

If the publisher knows and is publishing the address of the location, OR if the address of the location was what was actually entered by a human, and the publisher simply turned that into lat/long using some sort of a service, then the publisher SHOULD use [[adr]] to publish the actual human entered address information since communicates far more semantic information than a simple geo lat/long coordinate.

== Semantic XHTML Design Principles ==
{{semantic-xhtml-design-principles}}

== Format ==
=== Singular Properties ===

Note that all the properties in '''geo''' are singular properties, and thus the first descendant element with that class should take effect, any others being ignored.

=== Human vs. Machine readable ===

If an <code><abbr></code> element is used for a property, then the <code>title</code> attribute of the <code><abbr></code> element is the value of the property, instead of the contents of the element, which instead provide a human presentable version of the value.

=== Value excerpting ===

Sometimes only part of an element which is the equivalent for a property should be used for the value of the property. For this purpose, the special class name <code>value</code> is used to excerpt out the subset of the element that is the value of the property. See [[hcard|hCard]] for details on this.

=== Root Class Name ===

The root class name for an geo location is <code>geo</code>.

=== Property List ===

This is the list of properties in geo, taken from [[hcard|hCard]]:

* latitude
* longitude

=== XMDP Profile ===

See [[hcard-profile]] for the [http://gmpg.org/xmdp XMDP] profile of hCard which contains the above complete list of properties, with references to their RFC 2426 definitions.

=== Parsing Details ===

See [[hcard-parsing|hCard parsing]], with the only difference being that "geo" is the root class name, rather than "vcard".

== Examples ==

This section is informative.

=== Sample geo ===

Here is a sample of published lat/long info (from [http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=dc4754bf-64d5-4f28-8715-45ad2505c86f geocaching: Noble Steed]):

<pre><nowiki>
N 37° 24.491 W 122° 08.313
</nowiki></pre>

With geo markup:

<pre><nowiki>
<div class="geo">
<abbr class="latitude" title="37.408183">N 37° 24.491</abbr>
<abbr class="longitude" title="-122.13855">W 122° 08.313</abbr>
</div>
</nowiki></pre>

This geo might be displayed as:

<abbr class="latitude" title="37.408183">N 37° 24.491</abbr>
<abbr class="longitude" title="-122.13855">W 122° 08.313</abbr>

=== More Examples ===

See [http://microformats.org/wiki/hcard-examples#3.2.1_GEO_Type_Definition hCard example geo] for more examples.

== Examples in the wild ==
This section is '''informative'''.

The following sites have published geos, outside their normal context of hCards, and thus are a great place to start for anyone looking for examples "in the wild" to try parsing, indexing, organizing etc., in addition to [[hcard|hCard]] examples in the wild. If you find geos outside of hCards anywhere else, feel free to add them to the top of this list. Once the list grows too big, we'll make a separate wiki page.

* [http://harry.hchen1.com/mylife.htm Harry Chen has marked up his geo location]
* [http://www.multimap.com Multimap.com] uses the geo microformat to mark up latitude and longitude values on map pages.
* [http://rasterweb.net/raster/ Pete Prodoehl] geotags posts on his blog.

== Implementations ==
This section is '''informative'''.

The following implementations have been developed which either generate or parse geos outside the context of hCards. If you have an geo implementation, feel free to add it to the top of this list. Once the list grows too big, we'll make a separate wiki page.

* [http://www.podster.de/page/geotest podster.de] finds geo markups in podcast RSS Feeds and maps soundseeing episodes on a map (German only)
* [http://blog.codeeg.com/ Calvin Yu] has written a [http://blog.codeeg.com/2006/01/28/using-microformats-to-plot-my-favorite-places/ web service that will allow you plot and describe places on a Yahoo Map easily] using [[hreview|hReview]] and [[geo]].
* [http://bluesmoon.blogspot.com/ Philip Tellis] has written a [http://bluesmoon.blogspot.com/2006/01/of-microformats-and-geocoding.html javascript to add maps to geo markup on pages]
* [http://placenamehere.com/TXP/pnh_mf/ pnh_mf] is a plugin for [http://textpattern.com/ Textpattern] that supports embedding geos and other microformats in templates and blog posts. Written by [http://placenamehere.com/ Chris Casciano].
* [http://bluesmoon.blogspot.com/ Philip Tellis] has written some javascript to [http://bluesmoon.blogspot.com/2006/01/of-microformats-and-geocoding.html convert the geo microformat to a google map] using [[geo]].

== References ==
=== Normative References ===
* [[hcard|hCard]]

=== Informative References ===
* [http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2426.txt vCard RFC2426] ([http://www.w3.org/2002/12/cal/rfc2426 HTML reformatted version of RFC2426])
* [http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xhtml1-20020801/ XHTML 1.0 SE]

=== Similar Work ===
* [[adr]]
* [[hcalendar|hCalendar]]
* [[XOXO]]

== Work in progress ==
This specification is a work in progress. As additional aspects are discussed, understood, and written, they will be added.

== Discussions ==

* See [http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/referer.html blogs discussing this page].

=== Q&A ===
* If you have any questions about hCard, check the [[hcard-faq|hCard FAQ]] first, and if you don't find answers, add your questions! (Odds are that any geo question will apply to hCard as well).

=== Issues ===
* Please add any issues with the specification to the separate [[hcard-issues|hCard issues]] document. Ditto.
* Proposals for changes, additions and other thoughts about [[geo]] may be found in the [[hcard-brainstorming|hCard brainstorming]] page.

== Additional Related Reading and Sites ==

* [http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tigermap.html TIGER Map Service]

Microformats Wiki - User contributions [en]

geo